On Friday, Jack the Giant Killer stomps its way into theaters, bringing with it not only some statuesque monsters with a penchant for alliteration, but two great-looking leading men – Ewan McGregor and Nicholas Hoult – who do battle dressed like the sexiest Tin Men you’ve ever seen.

Ever since Peter Jackson first announced that The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey would be shot in 3D with cameras recording at a speed of 48 frames a second, pundits have analyzed how much his film might impact Hollywood as a whole.

But Visual Effects Supervisor Joe Letteri, who previously worked on groundbreaking film…

Although they were a massive gamble at the time, the Lord of the Rings films have become synonymous with big-screen, epic storytelling. Their serious, sweeping take on fantasy filmmaking was something that was not simply commercially successful, but artistically credible, winning awards and legitimizing genre movies more than ever before.